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Describe the Anxiety and Emotions Tinnitus Causes You

Jdwg

Member
Author
Oct 8, 2021
16
Tinnitus Since
03/2021
Cause of Tinnitus
Noise exposure
The main issue other than the obvious constant ringing is the emotions that tinnitus creates inside you.

I haven't really seen this discussed on the forums, so I thought it might be useful to share.
  • Tinnitus gives me a sort of paralysis feeling, in that I don't feel stable or strong enough to just do things e.g., it seems to seriously reduce my confidence.

  • The above feeling seems to combine with an uncertainty that is constant and nagging, this again stopping you from being care free.

  • I feel a type of displacement, as if I'm off centre or unfocused.

  • The noise interrupts my thought process and prevents the lucidity of uninterrupted thoughts.

  • All of the above combine into a sense of helplessness, frustration and remorse.

  • I constantly yearn for something to give even momentary relief.
Does anyone else have these feelings or similar?

I feel that if I can begin to tackle some of these issues that I may be able to handle tinnitus better.

Do you have any coping mechanisms to share?
 
Excellent analysis, jdwg.

It recently occurred to me that having this creates the emplacement of a perpetually grinding fear, rage, and depression that is very similar to accounts I have read of what living in a totalitarian regime is like.

Even when this condition is less bothersome than usual, there is always the dreaded certainty that it will without warning enact vengeance with a crippling spike.

Stalin would have understood this; he called this "Controlling the Masses by holding Terror-In-Reserve."

In North Korea, people are so terrorized that they will become physically ill if they even hear the footsteps of the Police down their apartment building hallway.

I am always in such a similar state of borderline-panic awareness with this 24/7.

Ever since I got this, the mental energy I need to 1) control my panic reaction and 2) rally my "coping mechanisms".

When a spike comes, it makes me so depleted that I start hyperventilating even after any mild physical exertion.

I always feel as if there is an almost unbearable electrical current running throughout my entire nervous system.

Like everyone else I have had my stressful periods, but there was never anything even remotely similar to the umulatively debilitating psychological consequences from this.

It wouldn't be so bad if only I could do something that would reduce to even a slight degree the invasive power of a spike.

This abject helplessness before this is what can throw me into an abyss of despair.
 
Can relate very much, especially to the first point. :(

Motivation of things has gotten a huge turn. Especially since I enjoyed music (listening and playing) and the details and intricacy of instruments which now is troublesome in frequencies close to the tinnitus. Luckily acoustic guitar sill works well for my ear to listen to. Can't fiddle as much with synthesizers, though. Feels really surreal that this is true – I guess 13 months (since onset of my really intrusive tinnitus variant) is too short of a time, if one can ever accept the situation that is. :(
 
Thank you for the replies.

I really hope that understanding these emotions may help me and others to gain a bit of control or agency over the dreaded torture of tinnitus.

Another emotion I get is over projecting to hypothetical futures and imagining how I won't be able to cope or manage e.g., in work, relationships, old age and similar. This creates an enormous feeling of inadequacy and of extreme solitude.
 
Another emotion I get is over projecting to hypothetical futures and imagining how I won't be able to cope or manage e.g., in work, relationships, old age and similar. This creates an enormous feeling of inadequacy and of extreme solitude.
@Jdwg, try projecting for better treatments or cure. I know it is hard. I live one day at a time. God bless.
 
This is an old thread that I am bumping, but I just want to say that I agree with all of the above. I can add something very sad: I have started avoiding "too happy" people that I know, as their happiness reminds me of everything I lost, and it hurts physically to be around them.
 
With me, it's mostly frustration, and a lot of that frustration comes from dealing with doctors who don't seem to take it seriously and who tell you the same useless things you could find out on Google. They tell you to run a fan in your room, but my tinnitus is so loud that I would need a fan that sounds like a jet engine to mask it.

The doctors don't listen. I believe that my tinnitus was possibly caused by a neck injury that led to TMJ disorder. When you mention TMJ disorder, you get the same dumb looks, and then they tell you not to chew. The side that has the hissing and buzzing is the side where I have TMJ. They don't want to connect the dots, or they don't know how to connect the dots.

I also suffered from vertigo for close to two decades, and finally, I found a doctor who wasn't incompetent. She did the Epley maneuver, and more than a decade of suffering with vertigo ended.

The most painful part for me, besides the frustration with uncaring healthcare professionals, is the fact that I am a musician and I'm unable to play in bands. Even if I play acoustically with no amplification, my ears ring to the point that it's not worth it anymore. Music was a big part of my identity and who I was. When you are a musician, it's more than just a hobby, avocation, or vocation; it's who you are.

There probably is a cure for tinnitus. I know there's a lot of gimmicky stuff on the internet. The diagnosis when it comes to hearing tests seems kind of absurd to me. When your head is buzzing and you have to listen to tones, how do you know it's a hearing problem and not the fact that the tinnitus is masking the tones? It's frustrating because I'm also an audio engineer and know more about sound and frequencies than the people who do the testing and especially the doctors who are quite ignorant when it comes to anything other than prescribing drugs and sending you to another doctor who is not going to help you. It's quite disheartening.

In my case, the attempted cure for the neck injury, TMJ, and tinnitus was worse than the disease. Three different doctors, at the same time, gave me cortisone. Doctors don't communicate with each other because they're too busy and too arrogant, I suppose. They overdosed me on corticosteroids, which caused something called cortisone psychosis. For me, it was nearly a year-long nonstop panic attack along with hives, also known as urticaria. There are a lot of neurological symptoms caused by being overdosed on cortisone.

My guess is that these devices being sold on the internet as a "cure" for tinnitus are just another scam by unscrupulous people who make money by preying on the suffering of others.

The only thing that looked promising to me was chiropractic care, but in my case, the chiropractor's adjustments don't really do much because of so much damage to my neck, some of it caused by getting injections from incompetent, money-grubbing doctors.

I cannot definitively say what the cause is; I can only guess. More likely than not, it is caused by TMJ disorder in my case. Unfortunately, the medical industry, especially in the United States, is pretty inept and has gotten to the point that the term "medical science" is pretty much an oxymoron.

Tinnitus is supposedly one of the motivations for suicide. When people are suffering, they certainly are not at their best. I requested some Valium to act as a muscle relaxer for my jaw, but the medical mafia doesn't give that out anymore. I was offered some muscle relaxers that had many dangerous and unpleasant side effects. The pharmacist told me that the drug prescribed was pretty horrid and advised me to take magnesium, which has had some small positive effect.

The frustration is the worst thing for me. I have recorded probably four or five albums worth of music, and I did it as a labor of love because, in today's music industry, actual music, done by actual musicians playing actual musical instruments, is no longer en vogue.

I wonder how many billions of dollars have gone into the pockets of the medical industry from people who desperately went to their doctors begging for treatment for tinnitus. The whole thing is reprehensible.
 
I'm experiencing hyperacusis-like symptoms and ear fullness, which are currently more bothersome than the tinnitus. However, the initial moderate reactive hiss, which was difficult to mask, caused me extreme anxiety attacks.

The scary part is that I can't identify a specific cause. It seemed to happen out of nowhere and has only gotten worse. I didn't experience barotrauma or noise trauma, so I have no idea what might have triggered it. The uncertainty of whether it will worsen or improve terrifies me.

I'm struggling to function at work due to the physical symptoms and increased anxiety. Even when I'm on vacation, I can't relax because I'm constantly preoccupied with the environment and trying to distract myself from the tinnitus.

It's exhausting, and despite being fortunate enough to still get good nights of sleep, I lack energy during the day. I can't fathom dealing with severe noxacusis/tinnitus on top of my current debilitating and life-changing experiences.
 

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